Divine inferences

1.) From a trait in the universe had from another. We find something in the universe that it cannot have of itself. The reality of insight tells us that we can see what things are in themselves. But for various reasons, when we consider necessity or causality or existence or a mover we see no way that what they are of themselves could be found in anything like the universe. Our “eureka” moment or “Newton’s apple” moment into these things can’t involve a vision of what is sensible, law based, comprehensible by a finite mind, etc. This is the dominant mode of inference in cosmological arguments, though not the only one.

2.) From the aporia of the universe itself. Evil both forever arises with the good and yet is secondary and derivative to it. This derivative nature requires that the non-existence of evil be a real possibility. But possibility exists only relative to acts; and so if evil will never be really conquered its non-existence is not a real possibility. Some eschaton becomes necessary, and so also the God who is alone capable of accomplishing it. This is why the two great parts of the Our Father end with invocations of the eschaton: sicut in caelo et in terra and libera nos a Malo.

3.) From the superabundant being of the universe. The imperfection of the universe (point 1) and its being at odds with itself (point 2) are balanced by the fact that it is superabundantly intelligible and sublime. How can it possibly execute a motion as difficult as difficult as the ones physics describes? How can human beings execute something as complicated, intricate, and confusing as their own history? It is not just a matter of “whatever happens, happens” – there are intelligible archetypes here, but we seemed destined to forever chase after them. But, pace Nietzsche, an intelligible archetype is relative to an intelligence, and an actual archetype to one actually knowing it.